


are the eggs made of chocolate?

by thefudge



Series: changing the narrative [2]
Category: Veep
Genre: Awkward Romance, F/M, May December, Office Romance, Older Man/Younger Woman, second installment
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-02
Updated: 2015-08-02
Packaged: 2018-04-12 14:36:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,870
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4483088
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thefudge/pseuds/thefudge
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>4x03. Kent continues to try and help Catherine improve her likability numbers. It all goes a little wayward at the annual White House Easter Egg Roll.</p>
            </blockquote>





	are the eggs made of chocolate?

“Have you seen _this_?”

The slight shrill in her voice is melodious and a little birdlike. Like those ghastly cartoons where the roosters have really elastic throats. He still hasn't gotten over the time he had to babysit his niece. The violence was visceral and hollow. He blinks and reconfigures himself as Catherine Meyer shoves a newspaper in his face.

He stops in the middle of the corridor to read the headline.

_FDOTUS – Is this America's role model?_

Underneath it there is an array of photos displaying Catherine on a night out with a young man. She appears to be smoking.

“Ah.”

“ _Ah_? You're in charge of my likability numbers, right? You need to fix this.”

“Have you gone to the President -”

“Yes, I _have._ And you can just call her "your mother". I mean, _my..._ mom. Anyway, she wasn't a lot of help. Which is why I'm here.”

Kent looks up from the newspaper and takes in her morning features. She is wearing a stringently colorful ensemble which doesn't look like anything she's ever owned. The bright pumps on her feet also appear to be a number too small. Sue has taught him to be vigilant about these things. He realizes, piteously, that she is actually trying to look more _cheerful_ and _appealing._ Those numbers really got to her.

“She said _I_  should be more careful with my private life, but that's why it's _private._ It's supposed to be off-limits!"  

He feels a touch of sympathy for her that reminds him of his mother. Vague and disturbing. 

“You know, Catherine, when I am up to my neck in analyst work, I sometimes like to sit back, crack my window a notch and take a puff of the old cigarette. The difference is, I make sure _no one_ sees me. ”

She blinks, unimpressed.

“Your office doesn't have windows.”

Kent almost asks how she knows this fact, until he realizes – yes, of course, she was there last week.

“Well,” he coughs, “it was more of an allegorical scenario -”

“Anyway, I wasn't smoking, if that's what you're implying. I was _vaping_. It's completely different.”

Kent remembers having seen the Ecig ads all over his favorite local supermarket. A real eye sore.

“Call it a different name, but it's still a nicotine fix,” he argues, pressing his thumb on one of the photos where she is blowing steam out of her mouth. “It's not exactly helpful that this young man is also...vaping.”

“That's Jason.”

He waits for an elaboration on who this Jason character is. He thinks Selina might have mentioned him once or twice in derision. But Catherine remains silent.

“He looks substantially older.”

She shifts her weight and rests one hand against the opposite wall to remove some pressure from her heels.

“He's in his thirties. How is that old?”

“Well, he was born in the early 1980s, at the pinnacle of the Reagan administration. You, on the other hand, were born a year short of Clinton coming into office. Would you have Reagan dating Clinton?”

Catherine cocks her head back and makes an "am I supposed to take this seriously?" face. 

“Of course you wouldn't. Different eras,” Kent concludes, giving her the newspaper back.

“Okay, John F. Kennedy,” she retorts, “like you are any younger -”

Kent reflexively touches his beard.

“First off, it's Lyndon B. Johnson, thank you very much, and second, I'm not the one dating a twenty-year old.”

“I'm twenty- _three_ ,” she protests, eyes bulging dramatically.

Kent purses his lips, like he does whenever he is told by some well-meaning evangelist neighbor that Jesus was thirty-three when he died.

“In any case,” he returns, “it doesn't bode well with the public if a newly minted FDOTUS acts older than her age.”

“ _Seriously_? What is age-appropriate at twenty-three?”

Kent doesn't have to struggle too long with this one. In fact, it rolls off the tongue like a godsend.

“The annual White House Easter Egg Roll. It's right around the corner.”

* * *

 

She hates the annual White House Easter Egg Roll. In fact, her only joy as a kid was that she was spared this activity because a) she wasn't the FDOTUS and b) she looked really sad in all her photos, so her mom co-opted someone else's kid from her staff to go with her.

On the other hand, she wants people to stop reading about how bad a role model she is. Everything she does is elaborately reconstructed as unpatriotic and immoral. Like that innocent article on Asghar Farhadi.

“He was nominated for Best Foreign Film,” is what she told various journalists who cared to listen to _her_ side of the story. They didn't, really.

And now she is kneeling in the grass, trying to convince an eight-year old to find a fucking egg.

"Come on, Sarah, will you help me find the Easter eggs? The Easter Bunny would be...super proud of you." 

“Are they made of chocolate?” the little girl asks, swinging her basket to and fro.

“I don't know. Maybe? Are they edible?”

“You don't _know_? You've never found an egg? Haha, you're old and you can't find the eggs!” she taunts.

Catherine frowns. “I obviously _can_."

"But you're asking for  _my_ help," Sarah contradicts sharply. "So you're really bad at this."

"I'm not -"

"I bet you never even had chocolate! I ate chocolate pancakes this morning and you didn't!"

"First of all, there's no such thing as chocolate pancakes. I mean, you can spread some Nutella on them, but they're still just flour and milk. Like, does your mom add chocolate into the mix? I don't think so."

“You'll never get my chocolate pancakes or my chocolate eggs, ha!" the little girl yells with absolute satisfaction, and scrambles to the other hordes of children dotting the green lawn. She makes sure to stick out her tongue before disappearing into the crowd.

Catherine gets up from the grass and follows her. She doesn't know why, but she really wants to find an egg before this brat does. Maybe two or three, to really rub it in her face.

She spots some kids on their tummies next to a tall hedge and she makes a dash towards them.

“Hey...guys! Did you find any eggs?”

Two boys look up at her with lopsided grins. They are holding an egg in each tiny fist. Their noses are brown with muck.

“Oh, wow, you have so many. You could um, grow a whole chicken farm. You don't mind if I take one, do you?”

The two exchange quick glances and stow their treasure away.

“Oh, come on. Don't be like that. I just need one. Promise I'll pay you back.”

“We found them first,” one of the boys complains.

“And you'd still have _three_ eggs if you spared one. That's more than enough. Don't you know sharing is caring?”

“Na-ah. This is an egg hunt. We don't share.”

Catherine wipes the sweat off her forehead. She can't wait for this stupid thing to be over. 

“Do you want to meet the President? I'll introduce you if you hand over one egg. She's my mom.”

“Hah, so what? My dad's a Whip.”

Catherine is a little confused at first, until she realizes that 'whip' is a polysemantic word.

“Right...but the President is more important than the Whip.”

“No way,” the Whip's son protests eagerly. “Daddy is in charge of votes in Congress. And he said he could bury all your mom's Democrat buddies if he cared to.”

“Well, you're a piece of work,” she mutters under her breath.

“What'd you call me?” he demands, face scrunching up in anger. His buddy is, ironically, egging him on. “Yeah, you tell her, Aaron!”

“N-Nothing. I just thought you nice kids would let me have an egg -”

“Mom, Dad! This lady is using the f-word in front of us!” Aaron suddenly yells towards the main terrace where the adults are enjoying some refreshments. She wonders, briefly, why she isn't among them. Their heads all turn towards her at the same time.

Catherine blanks with utter horror. “That's a lie! I never said the f-word!”

“She's calling us liars, too!” his buddy adds with appropriate timing.

Catherine gets up frantically and walks away, not looking back to see how many people are judging her...and how many of them are journalists.

* * *

 

Kent feels clean, for a change. This usually only happens when he rewatches _A Few Good Men_ , but this is kind of liberating. Getting rid of Dan Egan is probably the most useful public service he's providing for the tax payers, free of charge.

“It's a perfect fit. Worked on the Family First Bill, and handsome...therefore, guilty-looking,” he explains, throwing him one last bone as a goodbye gesture.

Dan is, naturally, devastated to lose the only important thing in his life, but only inasmuch as he's planning his next move. He _does_  want to lash out in anger for the sake of his manhood. He turns around and kicks the grass in a show of rage. It's an embarrassing spectacle to watch. 

Suddenly, an Easter egg pops out and flies into the air.

“Dan, don't move! I got it!” someone screams just out of his field of vision.

Kent recognizes her moments later, after she has already slipped and sprained her ankle on the grassy knoll.

* * *

 

“Fuck!” she yells despondently, holding her leg in pain.

Well, _now_ she said the f-word.

* * *

 

Reporters and staff are fluttering around them in a state of agitation and excitement. Someone just screamed profanity next to children at the White House. It's a historical event.

He does, however, feel partially responsible for her bad spell, so he doesn't mind carrying her over to the Rockin' Egg Role Stage. The doctor on call should be here any moment.

He deposits her backstage on a bean bag and props her leg up on his knees.

“Your legs need to be higher than your waist,” he explains, getting up.

Catherine is red with humiliation. She is sprawled like a lame puppet on an inflatable blob, while her feet rest on Kent's thighs.

“I've been thinking about it,” she says painfully, “and I want to start an anti-bullying charity.”

Kent raises one critical eyebrow. “Is it because the kids at the hunt bullied you?”

Catherine flushes angrily. “ _No_. I just think that's more productive than...whatever I was doing today.”

“Did you manage to catch an egg, after all?”

“I almost had Dan's. But the bastard just grabbed it and left.”

Kent looks down at her legs sheepishly. “Yes, he's quitting. Wanted to take one last souvenir, I suppose.”

Catherine scoffs. “Dan, quitting? Yeah and mom will actually come see if I'm all right.”

“Well,” he amends. “We _are_ making him quit. But it's practically the same thing. And POTUS is very busy, as you know.”

He checks his watch.

“Hey, Kent?”

“Hmm?”

“Are all the eggs made of chocolate?”

He doesn't have time to answer because the medical staff barges in backstage and he has to step aside and let them do their work. Selina doesn't come to check on her.

Minutes later, as he's walking across the lawn, he realizes she called him by his first name. 

**Author's Note:**

> Some of the lines/situations were taken straight from the episode. Thanks for reading!


End file.
